


breaking into heaven

by griefhoney



Category: NaPolA | Before the Fall (2004)
Genre: 1980s, Alternate Universe, Berlin Wall, Falling In Love, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-06-24 13:45:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19724866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/griefhoney/pseuds/griefhoney
Summary: on november 9, 1989 at approximately 00:24 albrecht stein arrives in west-berlin. on october 3, 1990 he decides to stay.





	breaking into heaven

_August 20, 1989_

Albrecht is good at what he does. A model student, hardworking, ambitious but not _too_ ambitious and with upstanding, loyal parents. Popular with both students and teachers he passed his _Abitur_ with distinction. 

It’s almost a certainty that he’s headed for the upper echelons of the party, just like his father. 

But right now Albrecht Stein is clattering down the stairs of his apartment block, half-dressed and without breakfast. 

See, he’s good at lying too. Almost as good at lying as he is at faking an opinion he doesn’t have for essays he couldn’t give less of a shit about. He’s good at knowing which floorboards in their apartment creak and he’s good at knowing when his father will stay the night at his office and when his mother will spend the night anywhere but at home. 

“Where are you off to?” Frau Kranz – the watchful eye of apartment block 76 A – calls down from where she’s leaning over the bannister two floors above Albrecht. 

“Forgot something at school,” Albrecht calls. 

It doesn’t really matter that it’s the summer holidays and that he graduated almost exactly a month ago.

The air is shimmering with heat; summer’s last hurrah before fading away into the beginnings of autumn. It’s hot enough for Albrecht to feel the heat radiating through the flimsy rubber soles of his trainers and he’s practically sprinting by the time he makes it to the bus stop. 

Katharina is standing in the shade of the shelter, fanning herself with a copy of _Neues Deutschland_ and glaring up at the sun. 

Albrecht remembers a time in 1985 when he thought he had a crush on Katharina only for that idea to come crashing down around his ears once he realised that it wasn’t Katharina he was fixated on but the boys that tended to swarm around her like moths to a flame. 

There was one boy in particular, but any affections sizzled into nothingness around the time he declared his ambitions to join the _NVA_ early. Albrecht has enough military men in his family, he doesn’t need on in his head as well. 

“What do you think?”  
  
His apartment is a dead zone when it comes to television or any kind of media from the West. 

“Seven hundred,” Katharina whispers as a congregation of young mothers shuffles past them, “ _seven hundred_ left yesterday. Through the Hungarian-Austrian border.” 

There’s more, but it’s difficult to hear over the ringing in his ears.

*

_September 10, 1989_

“You’re out a lot,” his mother says over dinner one evening. 

Albrecht pauses, a forkful of mashed potatoes halfway to his mouth. 

“It’s still warm,” he counters. “And uni doesn’t start for another week.” 

The curtain’s flutter with a soft autumnal breeze and Albrecht suppresses a shiver. It’s dark already, but the light above the table and the overdone lamb on their plates has attracted a fly that’s now happily buzzing around the kitchen. 

“We’d like to see you more,” she says, but doesn’t look him in the eye. 

_Liar_ , Albrecht thinks.

His father ignores him from the head of the table, mouth pulled into a familiar, disapproving line that haunts Albrecht’s nightmares. 

Albrecht shovels the rest of his mashed potatoes into his mouth and chews for as long as he can before finally replying with a vague, “I’ll see what I can do.” 

It appeases his mother, who sinks back into her thoughts, far, far away from the dinner table and the stifling atmosphere that has nothing to do with the left-over summer heat. His father, however, briefly raises his gaze to meet Albrecht’s. 

It’s a silent threat and Albrecht meets it with equally silent defiance. 

After that the evening drags out into eternity, ending only when the front door shuts behind his father as he decides to spend the night with his paperwork and secretary rather than his wife and son. 

*

_September 21, 1989_

Albrecht spends his first evening as a university student in the attic of Katharina’s house.

The arguing of her parents two floors below is underlined by the muffled chatter from the radio which is tuned to a West-German channel. 

“Christoph called me a couple of days ago,” Katharina announces out of the blue. 

Grip tightening on his pen Albrecht forces a shrug. 

“And?” 

Katharina narrows her eyes and imitates his shrug. 

“I hung up on him.” 

A band Albrecht is starting to recognise as _Led Zeppelin_ is announced by the DJ and they both sit in silence, focused on the music and not the pitching screams and curses from downstairs. 

*

_October 2, 1989_

The ten-thousand-man-strong ‘social unrest’ currently playing out on the TV is the best thing Albrecht’s seen all day. 

His father stares blankly and Albrecht grins from behind the safety of his notebook as the chant of _‘We’re no hooligans!’_ slowly turns into something a lot more poignant. 

Albrecht’s lips move along to the words of the crowd. 

_‘We are the people!”_

*

_October 7, 1989_

The city is covered in red.

A monotony that's only occasionally broken up by banners and flags that add a bit of black and yellow into the mix.

It’s hollow, meaningless pomp that would be quite funny if it weren’t so depressing. And if it’s starting to look funny to the people this celebration is supposed to impress then something’s definitely wrong. 

That morning Albrecht catches sight of the red handkerchief in his father’s coat pocket and decks himself out in blue, blue, blue. His own sullen little act of defiance. 

*

_October 9, 1989_

Katharina’s grip on Albrecht’s hand is tight enough that it feels like his bones are about to be crushed into a fine powder. She’s been clinging on for almost half an hour now and his whole right arm is starting to go numb. 

“They’re going to shoot, they’re going to shoot, they’re going to shoot, they’re going to—”

Aside from his whole body starting to lose feeling he’s going to go deaf and insane too. 

“Will you shut up? They’re not going to shoot.” 

They watch, completely transfixed, as the crowd on the telly moves forward as one. It’s a cautious, but determined, wave-like movement that makes Albrecht’s heart stop for a second. 

Tiananmen is hanging over everyone’s heads. 

The protesters move forward again and the ARD cameraman zooms in on the front row where faces are set, pale and resolute. Then he swings over to the rows upon rows of nervously shifting soldiers and policemen, eyeing the advancing crowd with something akin to awe. 

_‘We are the people!’_

“They can’t shoot,” Albrecht whispers, barely wincing when Katharina’s grip tightens again. 

They don’t. 

*

_November 2, 1989_

It’s a blustery, sun-soaked kind of morning and Albrecht is on his way to uni when he’s ambushed by a gangly young man with round glasses and even rounder, earnest eyes. He thrusts a pamphlet into Albrecht’s hands, mutters a hasty, “Good morning” and then hurries off. 

Albrecht watches him go and then stares down at the pamphlet in his hands.

_DEMONSTRATION_

_gegen Gewalt und fuer verfassungsmaessige Rechte_

_(Demonstration ist offiziell angemeldet)_

_Zeit: 4.11.89 10 Uhr_

_Treffpunkt: ADN-Gebaeude_

He has classes at 11 on the fourth. 

But this isn’t Leipzig. This isn’t Dresden or anywhere else. This is _here_. Berlin. 

Classes have never in his life felt less important. 

_*_

_November 3, 1989_

“Are you going?” 

His father is a big fish at the Politbüro so there’s no doubt that their phone and apartment are bugged, but Albrecht could honestly care less at this point. 

“ _Don’t be stupid—of course I am,_ ” is Katharina’s reply, which pretty much seals the deal. 

After he hangs up Albrecht wanders around the apartment for a bit before sidling into the living room where his mother is methodically unravelling her knitting. She looks blank and far away and doesn’t even look up when Albrecht sinks onto the sofa in front of her. 

“I’m going to a demonstration tomorrow,” he says.  
  
She doesn’t look up. 

“It’s legal,” he adds. 

_Unlike the others,_ is what he doesn’t say. 

He’s been to other demonstrations; dodged the leering cameras of various local and West-German TV channels, hidden in alleys from advancing policemen and come home with a black eye and bruised ribs from 24-hours of powerplay with the East German state. 

They sit in tense, suffocating silence until his mother finally speaks. 

“Don’t let your father see you. I hear they have a TV at the office now.” 

It’s the best he’ll get and he tries not to feel too disappointed. Both he and his mother are very well aware that Herr Stein isn’t above having his son arrested and – if the State demanded it – tortured. 

But she’s gone again, methodically taking apart the sweater she was never going to finish. 

*

_November 4, 1989_

Albrecht joins the main stream of protesters around at around 10 AM with two pieces of toast tucked into his coat pockets. It’s a cold, clear sort of day, with the sun casting her watery wintry light down onto the people and their wide assemblage of posters and banners slowly filling the uniformly grey streets. Life – real, visible, unrestrained life – is flowing through Berlin's veins today. 

_‘Für die Demokratie!’_

He can’t find Katharina in the ever-swelling crowd, but he does find a rowdy group of students carrying a placard with _‘Keine Lügen! Mehr Demokratie!’_ on it in bold green letters. 

One of the girls in the group – small, with a mop of curly brown hair – asks for a bit of his toast in a dialect that is decidedly un-Berlinerisch. She introduces herself as Elsa and beams when Albrecht asks where they’re from. 

“Magdeburg,” is her cheerful reply and Albrecht doesn’t choke, but it’s a close thing. 

“You came all this way?”

She looks at him like he’s stupid and says, “Of course! Wouldn’t you?”

It’s a good point and Albrecht gives her the rest of his toast. 

*

_November 9, 1989_

It’s a cold, silent evening and Albrecht’s curled up on the sofa with half an essay and a cup of elderberry tea. His father is clattering around in the kitchen on the search for a bottle opener and his mother is sitting at the kitchen table pretending to look busy. 

The telly is on loud but it’s not stopping Albrecht from occasionally nodding off. 

Then his father drops down into the armchair to Albrecht’s right and switches the channel. Albrecht wakes up just enough to take in the brown-green-grey assembly of government officials and a more colourful array of journalists before letting his eyelids droop shut again. 

A shocked gasp from his mother yanks Albrecht back into wakefulness. There's commotion on the telly, a confusion of noise and people shifting in their seats but one voice rises above the others. 

“ _Ab sofort?”_

Albrecht blinks, confused, as one of the grey suits – Günter Schabowski – starts fumbling around with the piles of paper in front of him.

“ _Also, Genossen, mir ist das hier so mitgeteilt worden—_ ” 

A pair of glasses gets pushed up the bridge of his nose and more paper is shuffled around.

“ _—_ _dass eine solche Mitteilung heute schon… äh… verbreitet worden ist. Sie müsste eigentlich in Ihrem Besitz sein. Also—_ ”

His gaze drops back down to the piece of paper in his hand and Albrecht can feel his heart start its steady climb up into his throat, where it sits, constricting and suffocating.

“ _Also: Privatreisen nach dem Ausland können ohne Vorliegen von Voraussetzungen – Reiseanlässe und Verwandtschaftsverhältnisse – beantragt werden. Die Genehmigungen werden kurzfristig erteilt. Die zuständigen Abteilungen…”_

The Stein's living room is dead silent. 

Albrecht’s mother has a hand pressed over her mouth, eyes wide and wet with shock. There was an aunt she had occasionally mentioned in the past – Tante Gisela – who was as kind with her husband’s money as she was with her words. She hadn’t talked about Tante Gisela in a couple of years – maybe she forgot – but now the realisation is written clearly across her face. 

It feels like a private moment so Albrecht looks away. 

How his mother – an upstanding young citizen of the BRD – ended up the wife of an East German bureaucrat, locking herself away in her head and their aggressively average Berlin apartment has always been somewhat of a mystery to Albrecht. 

No one breathes, not even when a question breaks through the answering din to Schabowski’s slightly confused recitation. 

“ _Wann tritt das in Kraft?”_

More noise. Schabowski leafs through the papers with a furrowed brow while Albrecht sits there, breath caught in his throat and knuckles white against the floral pattern of the sofa. 

“ _Das tritt nach meiner Kenntnis… ist das sofort, unverzüglich…_ ” he trails off and through the clamour of the journalists, now suddenly wide awake, another question makes it to the microphones. 

“ _S_ _ie haben nur BRD gesagt, gilt das auch für West-Berlin?”_

More confusion and noise as Schabowski repeats something written down on the papers in front of him. 

“ _Gilt das auch für West-Berlin?_ ” A different reporter asks, rising out of his chair. 

Schabowski shrugs helplessly. 

Albrecht wants to scream. The bewildered tension of the press conference room is practically bleeding through the TV screen and into the living room where it’s setting every single nerve ending in Albrecht’s body alight. 

There’s something in the air – a silence beyond noise, like the moment before a giant wave crashes onto the coast – tension stretched beyond breaking point. 

More commotion, more movement and inaudible questions. 

And then finally: 

“ _Herr Schabowski, was wird mit der Berliner Mauer jetzt geschehen?”_

Albrecht is on his feet and struggling into his coat before the press conference has properly ended. He feels half-mad, vaguely delirious as if he’s just on the brink of bursting out of his skin. 

There’s too much static in his head, drowning out his mother’s plaintive, “No _—_ let him _—_ ” 

Then, suddenly, there’s a hand on Albrecht’s shoulder and the next thing he knows he’s nose to nose with his father, who looms – red-faced and with a crazed gleam in his eyes – out of the soft orange light of the living room. 

Albrecht grits his teeth and meets his gaze in a fit of bravery that would’ve shocked his 16-year-old self. 

“You will _stay_ ,” his father snarls.

His breath stinks of beer and memories Albrecht would rather forget. Nights of cowering between his bed and dresser, hands over his ears and a silent scream trapped firmly in chest. Memories of essays and stories, hidden safely under the mattress of his bed until one day they weren’t and he was thirteen and trying not to cry while his father carefully set fire to each and every one of them. 

Albrecht hesitates, just for a second, eyes prickling hot and wet, before spitting out a defiant, “ _No_ ,” and twisting out of his father’s bruising grip. 

The slap comes as a surprise. 

And they’re too close, so his aim is off and Albrecht gets a quick, hot burst of pain and then a flood of stickywarm copper in his mouth.

He reels back, hand rising to cover his smarting cheek. 

No one – not his father, nor his mother – stops him as he gets his passport from his father’s study. Neither of them moves as he marches past, furious, determined and still bleeding freely from a neat little cut on his bottom lip. 

It’s exactly 19:18 by the time he makes it down onto the street. 

Katharina doesn’t even blink when Albrecht shows up on her doorstep with a quietly blooming bruise under his eye and a lip that’s still sluggishly oozing blood. 

“What’s going on?” He asks before the door is even properly open. 

She gives him a look. 

“I think I should be asking that question,” she mutters and ushers him inside. 

The television is already switched to ARD, but the news isn’t on for another 20 minutes and the seconds and minutes that Albrecht spends sitting at their kitchen table while Katharina’s mother fusses over his bloody mouth and dully throbbing cheek drag on and _on_. 

He misses the _Tagesschau_ in the end, too busy trying to chew a slice of bread and plum jam around a steadily swelling lip, but he doesn’t miss the triumphant shout from Katharina’s father and her ecstatic whoop. 

“Is it true?” He asks, stepping out of the way as Katharina rushes past him to flatten her nose against the kitchen window.

Her father, still sprawled on the sofa and staring blankly at the weather report, nods.

Albrecht, thinking about his passport sitting in his coat pocket and whatever awaits them across the wall, starts towards the hall, firm hand guides him back down into his chair. 

“Eat first,” Katharina’s mother orders. 

But eating turns into another minor bloodbath and that, in turn, turns into another session of emergency first-aid that then takes a turn for the bizarre when Albrecht is stripped of his blood-spattered shirt and presented with an array of relatively neutral options from Katharina’s wardrobe.

*

_(22:34)_

When Albrecht finally makes it out of Katharina’s house he's met with the strangest collection of people he's ever seen. Workers, students, mothers with their sleeping children in their arms, stooped old men, the occasional government official still dressed in the tired grey or brown of their work and so much, so much more. All of them heading in the same direction. 

Albrecht joins the crowd and among all the pinstriped pyjamas, blue overalls, thick winter coats and hairnets his mismatched outfit of a woollen overcoat and a tastefully floral blue and yellow shirt doesn’t even stand out. 

Someone further down the street starts singing and by the time they get to the next crossing they all are. 

*

_(23:17)_

The wall and the brightly lit up checkpoint are barely visible through the throng of advancing people. Everything is loud and bright. It’s almost enough to cancel out the November chill that’s following them through the streets. 

Albrecht spots policemen lurking nervously in the shadows between buildings and whole units of NVA troops loitering closer to the wall, eyeing the approaching crowd with guarded curiosity. 

None of them move, however. There are no orders to shoot, to control the crowd, to do much of anything really, except to stand back and watch. Albrecht even catches sight of some of the younger soldiers get on their tiptoes to peer over the heads of the crowd to where the border checkpoint guards are slowly but surely letting people filter through. 

*

_(23:33)_

Any semblance of control that the border guards may have had breaks down the moment their _Obersleutnant_ declares the checkpoint as completely open, stopping all passport controls and allowing full freedom of movement. 

A cheer erupts from the front of the crowd and as the news spreads the push forward begins. 

Now that there’s nothing stopping them Albrecht lets himself get swept up with the tide of people now heading straight for the checkpoint.

Any lingering remnants of fear have disappeared into the frigid night air, whisked away by the wind and the infamous order to shoot already seems like an ugly memory of a distant past. 

*

_(00:24)_

West Berlin is more foreign than Albrecht expected and everything about this realisation is jarring.

People – complete strangers – are shaking hands. Some are hugging, crying. Trabis are driving past in bursts of noise and cheering while the doors to pubs and bars are being thrown open, bringing more light onto the already fully lit streets.

Automatically, Albrecht turns around in search of Katharina or his mother but is only met with strange faces, all of them flushed from the cold and the excitement.

He's alone. Alone with the dully throbbing bruise on his cheek and his bloody lip and the chaos of history all around him

And so, ignoring the anxious lurch of his heart, he sets off into the unknown tangle of streets and alleyways of West Berlin.

*

_(00:45)_

Albrecht finds peace in a dingy alley lined with rubbish bins, a few bicycles and one lone abandoned shopping trolley.

It's blissfully quiet. 

Quiet enough for Albrecht to catch his breath; for him to lean against the rough brick and press the heel of his palm against the cut on his lip which had started to bleed again somewhere between a massive Kaufland and the muffled roar of the Spree. 

“Fuck,” he mutters. “ _Fuck_.”

West Berlin feels like a dizzy spectacle. Too much at once. 

“Hey _—_ you okay down there?” 

Albrecht practically leaps out of his skin, pushing off the wall and whirling around in search of the source of the voice. It only takes a second for his gaze to trail up the opposing wall until it reaches a window with a boy – no older than 19 – leaning out of it; complete with a shock of golden-blonde hair and eyes that are blue even in the awkward orange light filtering in from the street to their right. 

Their gazes meet and Albrecht, distantly, feels the earth crumbling away from under his feet, leaving him standing on the edge of something he’d rather not think about.

Time pauses briefly, as they do – eyes locked together. 

“You’re not from here, are you?” 

Albrecht’s grip on his passport, which he hadn’t let go of since he crossed the border, tightens and he shakes his head. 

“And? What do you think?” The boy leans even further out of the window, grinning down at Albrecht. “Do you like it?” 

“It’s… loud,” Albrecht replies lamely, “bright.” 

The boy braces himself against the windowsill and Albrecht tries and fails not to stare at his arms and the line of shoulders, almost bursting out of a ratty old T-Shirt. 

“Do you like it though?” He asks. 

Albrecht shrugs. 

“I haven’t been here very long _—_ haven’t seen much.”

Something in the boy's face sets. It's like determination but a bit more… urgent. An urgency Albrecht feels all too well, because who knows how long this dream will last. How long the SED will let their citizens roam free before they pull at the very short leash they're all on and yank them back into the isolated 'safety'. 

“What’s your name?” 

Albrecht looks away from the light and the city beyond it and back up at the boy and his shockingly white-toothed smile. 

“Albrecht,” he says. 

“Friedrich,” the boy replies in turn. 

The name feels familiar on Albrecht’s tongue as he tests it out against the background noise of Berlin. It curls into a damp fog and then into nothingness as if the chilly November air recognises it when it's spoken from his dry and bloody mouth. 

Albrecht closes his eyes and when he opens them again he's met with the blue, blue, blue of Friedrich's eyes. 

“You’re bleeding,” Friedrich says, grin fading away. 

They reach for Albrecht’s bloody, swollen lip at the same time. 

“You know what helps with things like this?” Friedrich says, quickly replacing worry with something more carefree. “Coca-Cola.”

Against all his better judgement Albrecht lets out an involuntary snort of laughter and lets himself be dragged back out into the light, heartbeat thumping in his fingertips. 

*

_(01:22)_

“And?” 

Albrecht gingerly presses the can of Coca-Cola against his lip. 

“It’s fine,” he mumbles evasively. 

They sit in companionable silence on the curb outside of the pub where the owner had given them a can of coke for free. ( _“It’s just that kind of night, isn’t it?” He laughed._ ) 

“Have you ever tried it before?” 

Albrecht spares him half a glance. Too nervous to allow himself to look any longer than that. Around them, people are streaming further into the city and the smell of beer and petrol is heavy in the air. 

“Cola, I mean,” Friedrich elaborates with a vague gesture at the can pressed to Albrecht’s mouth. 

“No. No, I haven’t.” 

Neither of them move until Friedrich sighs and pries the can out of Albrecht’s grip. 

“Here,” he says and opens it with a loud _pop_ and then a quieter hiss, “try it.” 

It’s good. Sweet, fizzy; sort of makes Albrecht’s eyes water, but still, it’s good. The cut on his lip protests, but he ignores it valiantly and takes another, more careful sip. 

He can feel Friedrich’s gaze on him, a familiar warmth that conjures up images of spring, dust caught in shafts of light and a bed rumpled by a good night’s sleep. Albrecht presses the hard edge of the can against his lip and the stab of pain makes the images stop. 

“You can wash your car with Coca-Cola, you know,” Friedrich says. 

Albrecht chokes. 

*

_(01:48)_

“Are you trying to poison me?” 

Friedrich waves the can of something horrendous called _Mezzo Mix_ in Albrecht’s face, a gleeful grin lighting up his features. 

“Try it,” he urges. 

And when Albrecht tries to protest, backing away with his hands raised, Friedrich pulls him in, grip firm on his wrist and brings the lip of the can up to Albrecht’s mouth. 

The glee in his grin has faded away into something that Albrecht doesn’t know the word for. 

He has nowhere else to look, caught in between Friedrich’s smile, his warm hands and the blue, blue, blue of his eyes. 

*

_(02:09)_

The idea of going back – facing reality and an apartment where his father is no doubt sitting on the sofa with an axe in his lap – is daunting enough to make Albrecht almost physically sick.

West Berlin still feels like too much of a dream, even now that the temperatures have dropped below 10 degrees and the crowds on the streets are thinning, disappearing up into apartment blocks or trickling back across the border. 

He can’t leave. Not yet. 

*

_(02:36)_

They end up at the Spree.

Clamber over a wall, down the embankment and under the cover of darkness make it all the way to the water’s edge. 

The Spree here isn’t all that different to the Spree on the other side, it’s the same river after all, and it’s a relief for Albrecht to find something so familiar amongst all the colourful, capitalistic chaos that is West Berlin. 

Albrecht has dreamt of drowning in the Spree more times than he’s willing to admit. Stepping into the greyblack water and walking further and further until there’s nothing of him left. He’s dreamt of kneeling in the surf and letting the currents wash him out of Berlin, down the Havel, then into the Elbe and finally into the cool embrace of the North Sea. 

He’s walked similar streets with his pockets heavy with rocks, not cans of Coca-Cola and a passport. He’s been trapped under ice, pushed and jumped off of landmarks like the Oberbaumbrücke and drowned so many, many times that it almost feels like a memory.

A warm hand on his shoulder brings Albrecht back to himself. 

“Hey—” Friedrich’s voice is soft and his grip steady as he carefully urges Albrecht away from where the Spree is lapping at his feet. 

Albrecht distantly wonders what he must look like, sitting there on the shores of the Spree in an ill-fitting coat, a girl’s polyester blouse, with a bruise under his eye and a bloody, swollen lip. Sitting there, thinking about drowning himself while a boy, who looks like a HJ poster boy holds his hand. 

“I don’t think I can go home,” he whispers. “Not yet.” 

“That’s okay,” Friedrich says and Albrecht wants to kick himself because he actually _believes_ him. That it’s okay. All of it. “You can stay at my place for the night,” Friedrich adds. “My parents won’t mind.” 

*

_(03:14)_

The Weimer’s flat is on the third floor of a building that had at least partially survived the war and the following overenthusiasm of the bright young architects of the 1950s. It’s pretty in a cramped, old-fashioned sort of way. 

“Hungry?” Friedrich asks as he sneaks Albrecht past the kitchen and through a cluttered living room. 

At Albrecht’s noncommital shrug he grabs a banana and tucks it into Albrecht’s coat pocket. 

There’s a corkboard in the hall, filled with timetables, out-of-date cinema tickets and pamphlets, a Persian rug that’s seen better days and a pair of boxing gloves dangling from a chair at the dining table. 

Albrecht tries not to stare too obviously. 

“It’s not much,” Friedrich mumbles and pushes open the door to his bedroom. 

It isn’t. It’s the size of a post stamp and as carelessly untidy as Albrecht had expected. But the bed is made and there’s a poster on the wall next to the window – the window that looks down onto a dirty, narrow alleyway.

Albrecht divests himself of his coat and then stands in the middle of the room, looking a bit lost.

“I have a spare toothbrush somewhere,” Friedrich mutters, more to himself than to Albrecht, who gingerly sinks down onto the foot of the small twin bed.

The events of the night are catching up with him all at once, weighing and pushing down onto the bed until he blinks awake to Friedrich looming over him. His heart kicks back into gear and he sits up abruptly, blinking against the black dots in his vision. 

Friedrich gently pushes a pair of worn cotton pyjama bottoms, an oversized _Adidas_ pullover and a toothbrush into Albrecht’s hands. 

“The heating’s broken,” he explains when Albrecht silently holds up the pullover.

By the time Albrecht returns – tongue heavy with the lingering taste of spearmint and the hems of his pyjama bottoms dragging under his heels – the moon has quietly worked her way to their corner of the sky and is casting perfect squares of silvery moonlight onto the time-worn hardwood floor. 

A pillow and a neatly folded star-spangled blanket are waiting for him next to Friedrich, who’s sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed and fiddling with a cigarette lighter. 

“You don’t mind sharing do you?” 

Albrecht tries not visibly sag with relief at these words. He shakes his head and Friedrich lets him clamber onto the left side of the bed, by the wall, before pulling the quilt over both of them. They lie facing each other, only inches apart. 

“Thank you,” Albrecht whispers, because it needed to be said. 

*

_November 10, 1989_

Friedrich’s mother smiles as she puts a plate of eggs and toast down in front of Albrecht, who’s managed to clock in three hours of sleep and only one minor panic attack in the Weimer’s bathroom. 

For the first time in months his heart is light, and with that lightness comes a shit ton lot of guilt and trembling hands and waking up tangled in Friedrich’s warmth and knowing that somewhere, further East a wall and a whole way of existence is still in the process of collapsing. 

“Are you going to go back?” She asks, taking the seat opposite Albrecht’s. 

Focusing on his food Albrecht shrugs, nods and then finally says, “Have to _—_ there’s school, my mother, my friends.” 

He carefully avoids the subject of his father and Frau Weimer, who had already treated the bruising cut on his lip with antiseptic, wisely decides not to pry. Some things don’t have to be spoken out loud to be understood.

By the time Albrecht’s half-way through his breakfast Friedrich appears with a towel around his neck and his hair wet and dripping into his eyes. He beams when he spots Albrecht hunched over his plate and darts past just to steal a loose bit of scrambled egg. 

Albrecht lets him with only minimal complaining. 

“I’ll come with you,” he says, hopping up onto the kitchen counter. “If that’s okay,” he adds belatedly after a look from his mother. 

It’s a stupid question, but Albrecht nods, hiding his truly embarrassing amount of enthusiasm behind a slice of toast. 

*

_November 16, 1989_

Friedrich is waiting on the other side once Albrecht makes it through the checkpoint.

“It’s not MokkaFix,” Friedrich says, holding out the cardboard cup of coffee. “But I hope it’s to your Majesty’s liking.” 

It’s cold; temperatures hovering closer to 0 than to anything even close to 10 degrees. Katharina thinks it’s a Soviet plot to deter people from making the trip to the West. But Albrecht, who stood in a queue for over half an hour, has the distinct feeling that it would take something drastic like a hurricane to keep the people away. 

“It’ll do,” he says graciously, accepting the cup and wincing slightly when the piping hot and achingly sweet liquid hits the back of his throat. 

“So,” Friedrich grins, “what do you want to do today?” 

Sixteen – almost seventeen – days since the wall fell. 

“You decide,” Albrecht says.

*

_November 28, 1989_

“It’s not as different as I was expecting,” Friedrich murmurs as the trudge – shoulder to shoulder – along an almost deserted and uniformly straight street. 

“What were you expecting?” 

Friedrich shrugs and then with a sideways glance at Albrecht says, “Oh, you know, general… socialist devastation.” 

The gritty mound of icy sludge that Albrecht swipes off of a nearby rubbish bin and hurls at him is absolutely deserved and before Albrecht can think of a scathing enough retort Friedrich is off down the street, laughing madly and with Albrecht – fingers aching with cold – hot on his heels.

*

_December 9, 1989_

It only takes about a month for Albrecht to convince his mother to make a trip to the West. 

His father is never home so he doesn’t hear the largely one-sided conversations over breakfast, lunch and dinner, or whenever else Albrecht manages to catch his mother’s attention. 

It’s an uphill battle just to get her to _talk_ so when she plops onto the sofa next to Albrecht one evening and says, “Tomorrow? Alright?” it takes Albrecht a second to realise what she’s talking about. 

And now they’re standing on the Ku’damm with 100DM in their pockets and staring around at the passing crowds, the cafes and the darkening West Berlin sky, which isn’t all too different from their own. Fewer stars, maybe. More light pollution. 

*

_December 26, 1989_

They exchange gifts while sitting on Friedrich’s bed and with the weather throwing a fit outside, battering the windows with heavy gusts of snow and ice. 

“I hope you like it,” Friedrich says and his tone and the suspicious twinkle in his eye almost makes Albrecht pause. But he doesn’t and tears open the red and green wrapping paper in three, practised movements. 

Out falls – neatly folded, bright red and at least three sizes too small – a Coca-Cola T-Shirt. 

Albrecht stares at it, then smiles. 

“Thank you,” he says earnestly, before pulling his pullover over his ears and exchanging it with the tight, garish red T-Shirt. It’s way too cold to be wearing just a T-Shirt, especially in the Weimer’s apartment where the heating is still waiting to be fixed, but Albrecht’s trying to make a point. 

The look and the hint of pink in Friedrich’s face also make the potential frostbite feel a bit more worth it. 

“This is a book,” Friedrich says, surprised, when Albrecht hands him his present. 

Albrecht just cocks his head silently and waits. 

The wrapping paper falls away and–

“Oh, _fuck_ you.”

Friedrich holds up the equally, garishly red paperback copy of _the Communist Manifesto_ and stares at Albrecht, who is ardently trying not to laugh, with a look of exasperation and humour. 

“Seriously? _Seriously_?” 

Albrecht’s cracking at the edges but manages to force out a stilted, “Don’t you like it?” before dissolving into a helpless fit of laughter, half-heartedly kicking at Friedrich when he lunges in retaliation. 

Somewhere between wrestling and hitting the back of his head on the windowsill, Albrecht thinks about kissing Friedrich. It might’ve been when he was trapped between the blue sheets and the blue of Friedrich’s eyes, wrists caught in his hands and _the Communist Manifesto_ digging into the small of his back. 

He flees before the thought can take hold; takes the long way back to East Berlin by way of the Spree, who rushes along carelessly and when his heart grows too heavy, he briefly stops and thinks about throwing it into the icy, black water. Rid himself of it for good. 

But the Spree pays him no mind and Albrecht goes home. 

*

_January 1, 1990_

Under the cover of the erratic light of the fireworks, the clogged up sky and the cheering of the people all around them, Friedrich grabs Albrecht’s hand. 

He doesn’t let go when the last red and gold explosion lights up the darkness stretched above them. He doesn’t let go when the first firecrackers start going off, pressing everyone off of the street and back onto the pavement. 

He doesn’t let go when flutes of champagne start going around and he doesn’t let go when his mother finds them in the crowd and pulls Albrecht into a teary-eyed hug. Only when the mob around them thins and they have nowhere to hide does he let go. 

“Do you want to stay the night?” 

Albrecht thinks about saying no, thinks about the heaviness in his heart and the silent apartment waiting for him on the other side of the wall.

“Yes,” he whispers. 

*

_February 9, 1990_

Katharina gives Friedrich a critical once-over before turning to Albrecht and asking, “Have you done a background check on him?” 

Not even bothering to look up Albrecht says, “I thought I’d give you the pleasure.” 

She beams toothily and Friedrich shifts nervously in his seat, while Albrecht disappears back into his book, letting the chatter of the cafe around them lull him into comfort. 

*

_February 23, 1990_

“Well, he’s not a Nazi,” Katharina says, flopping onto the bench next to Albrecht. 

The traffic on the street in front of them rumbles on and Albrecht takes a deep breath and squints up into the still watery light of the sun. It’s a cloudless, unnaturally warm day and he’s got his jacket folded neatly in his lap and Katharina’s calves are on full display.

“That only took you _—_ what? Twelve shopping trips to figure out?” 

She kicks at his shins and he kicks back.

“I just wanted to be sure,” she mutters, ignoring Albrecht when he rolls his eyes. “He’s nice, you know. I like him.” 

There’s a pause where a bus heading further East speeds past, the driver having correctly interpreted their lack of movement. 

“He’s nothing like Christoph,” she adds, quietly. “In a good way.” 

Albrecht stares into the pale blue sky and says nothing.

*

_March 17, 1990_

Sometimes Albrecht forgets that Friedrich is a boxer. 

Forgets until he’s in the stands around the ring, watching him move, duck and punch under the warm glow of the lights and thinks that this might be the only thing he’ll ever be able to think about for the rest of his life. 

He doesn’t like it, but seeing Friedrich clamber out of the ring, glowing, bruised and bloody from a match he won fair and square, makes it all a little more worthwhile. 

“And?” 

Albrecht flounders, trying to think and not look at glowing, golden skin of Friedrich’s chest. 

“What do you want me to say?” He asks and doesn’t manage to dodge in time when Friedrich pulls him into a tight and slightly sticky hug. 

“That I did good,” he murmurs into the crook of Albrecht’s neck. 

Albrecht pulls away, flushing helplessly. 

“You—you were good.” 

The arrival of Friedrich’s coach breaks whatever had been building in the air between them and Albrecht gladly finds refuge in the bathroom while Friedrich fends off the admiring looks from his juniors. 

*

_March 21, 1990_

“It’s just cultural differences,” he says a little desperately after spilling the story to a very exasperated Katharina. He’s been carrying it around with him for over three days to a point where it had actually gotten physically painful. 

They’re doing the dishes, listening to a Beatles record, that ended up in Albrecht's possession after Friedrich convinced him to buy it, and enjoying the first +15 temperatures creeping in from the open window. 

“You,” Katharina says, pointing a wooden spoon covered in soap suds accusingly at Albrecht’s chest, “are dumber than I thought.”

*

_April 14, 1990_

On the 78th anniversary of the sinking of the _Titanic_ Albrecht’s mother tells him: 

“I’m divorcing your father.”

Albrecht means to say something along the lines of _‘Good for you!’_ or _‘Good riddance!’_ but what comes out instead is: 

“My university is closing.” 

They stare at each other, both too stunned to speak. 

“Well,” she starts slowly, “that’s… unfortunate.” 

It’s obvious that she’s trying not to smile and that realisation makes the corners of Albrecht’s mouth twitch. 

“I don’t think I would have made a very good politician,” he says and as the sun breaks through a bank of clouds high above them, pouring warm spring light into their cramped little kitchen, his mother smiles.

“Yes,” she agrees, “you're too idealistic, I think.”

*

_May 3, 1990_

“Have you ever been to Paris?” 

Albrecht stops in front of a freezer stocked with frozen pizzas and says, “I should start charging you for every stupid question you ask.” 

Friedrich’s reflection beams at him and he turns around. 

“It was a rhetorical question,” Friedrich says, grabbing Albrecht’s hand and dragging him along the aisle. As if in response to their interlocked fingers a toddler in the next aisle starts wailing and Albrecht tries to let go. 

They round the corner and the toddler stops abruptly. 

“Do you _want_ to go to Paris?” 

Albrecht stares at the 13 different brands of chocolate milk in front of him and then at Friedrich, his expression open and expectant. 

“Paris?” He repeats weakly. 

“Yeah,” Friedrich says and when Albrecht’s expression remains blank he starts singing softly, “ _Aux Champs-Elysées, aux Champs-Elysées_ …”

The toddler starts wailing again, louder than before and Albrecht, plucking a bottle of chocolate milk out of the refrigerator, says, “If I say yes, will you stop singing?”

*

_May 27, 1990_

Albrecht’s father moves out of their apartment on a sunny, windy day. He’s not the only one. Plenty of apartments in their block and the surrounding ones are now empty, some completely bare and others clearly abandoned in haste. 

He stops on the threshold one last time and turns around to face Albrecht. 

“I hope,” he starts haltingly, “that we can be friends one day.” 

Albrecht nods, not knowing how to reply. 

An awkward silence hangs in the air until he turns on his heel and heads for the staircase, suitcase in hand and his suit jacket draped over his arm. He’s still dressed in the dreary greys, greens and browns of an SED bureaucrat. 

They watch him go.

“His secretary is pregnant,” Albrecht’s mother suddenly blurts out and Albrecht has to slap a hand over his mouth to stop a rather hysterical burst of laughter from escaping. 

“Are you okay?” 

She turns to stare at him. 

“ _I’m_ not pregnant,” she says. “He’s someone else’s problem now.” 

It took Albrecht less than five months to fall in love, so he can’t help but wonder how long it took his mother to fall _out_ of it. But he doesn’t ask; she looks too happy for that sort of a question. 

*

_June 8, 1990_

Albrecht falls asleep with his head on Friedrich’s shoulder and wakes up to a setting sun, the middle of the opening ceremony of the World Cup and to Friedrich’s little brother parading around the living room with a West German flag wrapped around his shoulders. 

“What’s going on?” He mumbles, sitting up slightly. 

It’s just them on babysitting duty. Friedrich’s parents have gone to watch the ceremony with some old friends where they can get properly hammered without having to worry about their children. 

“Nothing interesting,” Friedrich says and smoothly loops an arm around Albrecht’s waist. 

Albrecht’s casts a nervous glance at Friedrich’s brother, but his eyes are glued to the happenings on the telly and pays them no mind. Reassured, he lets his head thump down onto Friedrich’s chest. 

“Wake me up if anything interesting happens,” he yawns, eyes already drifting shut. 

Friedrich’s makes a noncommital noise in the back of his throat, which is as good as a _yes_. 

*

_June 24, 1990_

“And? What do you think?” 

They’re sitting on a bench under the shade of a giant oak tree, hidden away from the glare of the sun and the wandering gazes of the people in the park around them. 

Albrecht tries not to show how nervous he is – how much Friedrich’s genuine opinion means to him – but it’s hard; his hands twist in his lap as Friedrich looks up at him over the edge of the manuscript. 

“It’s good,” he says simply. 

Albrecht’s shoulders sag. 

“Just—just good?” 

His hands haven’t stopped twisting, but they do when Friedrich gently lays the manuscript in his lap and says, “The ending is… really fucking sad. But I like it. I like happy endings too, but I like that there was potential for one and that you didn’t do it–didn’t tie it up with a nice little bow.”

“Oh,” is all Albrecht manages to come out with. 

“But you should write more happy endings,” Friedrich decides. He’s watching Albrecht, eyes bright with something unidentifiable. 

“I—” Albrecht starts, but doesn’t get to finish. His words get stuck somewhere in his throat when Friedrich suddenly pushes into Albrecht’s personal space – knocking his story to the ground – and presses a quick, giddy kiss to his mouth. 

And then he pulls away, slightly pink but unabashed. 

A blackbird, somewhere in the oak tree above them, trills a vague, sweet tune of congratulations before fluttering away into the periwinkle blue sky and disappearing for good. 

Albrecht stares, completely lost and with one hand slowly drifting up to his mouth. Then the realisation of what just happened hits him like a ton of bricks and he whirls around, heartbeat frantic in his chest.

“Did anyone—”

Tugging Albrecht’s hand away from his mouth Friedrich says, “Don’t worry. No one saw.” 

“But why did you—I don’t… I don’t understand…”

Friedrich’s expression shutters. 

“I won’t do it again if you don’t want me to.” 

Panic rears its ugly head in Albrecht’s chest and he reaches out. 

“Do it again,” he says, way too loudly and they both start and look around. “Do it again,” he repeats, quieter this time. 

*

_July 8, 1990_

Albrecht had, admittedly, not really been paying much attention to the World Cup; getting most of his information from play-by-play run-downs of important matches from either Friedrich’s little brother or Katharina when she managed to catch a match. 

He can’t avoid the final, however. 

It’s balmy evening and the windows in the Weimer’s apartment are thrown open to the gentle breeze and the distant noise from the other apartments and cars down below. 

Everyone is there; the Maltke couple from the floor above with their 10-year-old daughter and overexcited 6-year-old son, a loose collection of Friedrich’s parents’ friends, Katharina and her parents and Albrecht’s mother, who’s sitting in a patch of fading daylight with a glass of wine and glowing from the inside out. 

Albrecht doesn’t fall asleep for this match, but he doesn’t exactly pay attention either, only getting torn out of his wandering thoughts when loud screams and cheers erupt all around him. 

“What—”

“PENALTY!” Friedrich shouts and then immediately adds a quick, “Sorry, sorry,” when Albrecht winces. 

“Get your flags ready, boys,” one of Friedrich’s father’s friends says, grinning at the telly with beer foam in his beard. 

And so, Albrecht – bored out of his mind – ends up spending the last ten minutes of the game methodically cutting the emblems out of the flags his and Katharina’s family had brought with them. 

To absolutely no one’s surprise West Germany wins and the whole of Berlin pours out into the streets in a great big, noisy, black, red and yellow wave.

At the blow of the final whistle the six-year-old Maltke kid goes bombing past Albrecht, the ex-East German flag he’s wearing like a poncho fluttering around his ankles as he screeches gleefully. 

In the mad rush for the door and the street down below Albrecht grabs Friedrich’s hand. 

*

_August 12, 1990_

“Paris?” The lady at the travel agents says, eyebrows raised. 

Albrecht and Friedrich smile and nod. 

“At this time of year?” 

Rain is lashing against the windows of the travel agency and Friedrich is discreetly wringing out the sleeves of his shirt onto the expensive, dark blue carpet. Somewhere under the steady rumble of the traffic outside a heavy crash of thunder tears through the sky, decidedly closer than it was five minutes ago. 

“We were actually thinking of going in autumn.”

She stares at them, completely bewildered. 

“We need somewhere cheap to stay,” Friedrich says and everyone politely ignores waterlogged squelch of his trainers as he moves his chair closer to Albrecht’s. 

With some effort, she manages to rearrange her features back into an expression of professional disinterest and says, “How long are you thinking of staying?” 

Thankfully, she doesn’t notice Friedrich reaching out to hold Albrecht’s hand under the desk. 

*

_September 23, 1990_

They share a bed and a bathroom in an ancient, rickety boarding house in a vaguely questionable area of Paris. The bathroom looks out onto the street and their actual room has a birdseye view of a tiny, overgrown garden hidden away between the houses. 

Friedrich is sunburned and lovely and Albrecht is wide-eyed and running on a mixture of euphoria and too many sleepless nights. 

He tries to practise his French when Friedrich pins him to the bed and blushes and stutters the next day when he thanks their waiter for his coffee. After that, the German-to-French pocket dictionary comes in handy a couple more times and does so with such great effect that Albrecht can’t introduce himself without stuttering. 

They sneak a kiss on a boat gliding along the Seine in the crisp afternoon sunlight, get disgustingly drunk in a club called _La Création_ and sober up on the steps of an old Catholic church. 

With the camera Albrecht borrowed from his mother he takes pictures of Psyche and Eros and of Friedrich flipping off the Mona Lisa. 

They eat crepes and when it starts raining find shelter in a record shop where Friedrich introduces Albrecht to The Cure. He ends up buying the record and hums, “ _Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me…”_ in Friedrich’s ear until he does. 

That evening they write postcards because phonecalls are expensive and feed a stray cat on their way to the nearest post box. 

In the Seine Albrecht finds a river he doesn’t want to drown himself in and in the soft golden-pink of the Parisian sunset he finds a future he might want to stick around for.

* 

_October 3, 1990_

It’s not New Years Eve, but when the clocks strike midnight and the fireworks start soaring up into the sky Albrecht turns around – cold fingers finding the lapels of Friedrich’s coat – and pulls him into a kiss. 

The erratic bursts of light and colour and the deafening noise make them practically invisible.

Friedrich pulls him in – eyes flutter shut, bodies press together like puzzle pieces – and Albrecht feels him smile against his mouth.

As history is made all around them Albrecht takes his own tentative step towards the future. 

But it’s a lot, all at once. 

He can feel his heartbeat in his throat, in his fingertips; forgets how to breathe until his vision is filled with a steady, unwavering blue and Friedrich says, “Hey—it’s okay. You’re okay.” 

It’s okay. 

The future looms amongst the stars and fireworks and Albrecht looks up, defiant. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is what happens when you watch before the fall and good bye lenin in very short succession of each other


End file.
